Google Privacy Law ‘Means Total Rethink of Basic Freedoms’

Photo Credit: dannysullivanHundreds of millions of people across Europe will be forced to change completely the way they use the internet, according to one of Google’s key advisers.

The era of freely available information is now over in Europe, warns Professor Luciano Floridi, who has been appointed by the £225bn search engine firm to find out how it should comply with a landmark ruling that allows people to ask for personal information to be taken down.

His warning comes as The Independent reveals that 12,000 requests were made on Friday, around 20 a minute, from people across Europe demanding to have their personal details removed from Google. More than 1,500 of these are believed to have come from people in the UK who were looking to take advantage of a service launched by Google to make it easier for people to apply for personal data to be removed.

The move follows a European court’s ruling earlier this month that gave people the “right to be forgotten”; convicted criminals are among those trying to hide links to stories from online search engines. An ex-MP who is seeking re-election is another of the thousands who have approached Google.

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